Twisted (Never After #4)(49)

My stomach cramps and my hands grow clammy as I type and erase, then retype a message out.

Me: I had to do something that you’re not going to like. Something I didn’t want to do. But it’s to keep you safe, to keep everyone safe, and I need you to not be mad at me. I need you to understand.





Bile rises through my esophagus, and I swallow around the sour taste in my mouth, my stomach tossing and heaving.

Aidan: You can tell me anything, princess.





Me: I married Julian today.





And then I drop my phone, running to the toilet just in time to throw up.





Chapter 20





Julian





I’ve been trying to get ahold of Ali all week, but he hasn’t returned my phone calls and I haven’t had a chance to stop by his house. He’s been a ghost on email, having gone from working from home to not really existing within Sultans at all, and I wonder if he’s taken a turn, one that has him unable to do things that require focus and energy.

A twinge of unease smarts in my chest when he doesn’t answer again when I try to call, and my leg shakes beneath my desk. I’m not sure if he’s just feeling worse for the wear or if he’s avoiding my calls because he wasn’t quite as accepting of my relationship with Yasmin as he made it appear.

Either way, I need to break the news that we’re legally wed, and I want to do it in person.

Ending the call to Ali, I dial Yasmin’s cell instead. She forwards it to voicemail, and I grit my teeth, taking a deep breath to keep the annoyance from suffocating every pore.

She’s also been avoiding me; stubbornness obviously runs thick in the Karam family line. I haven’t minded much, since I don’t need her to do anything other than exactly what she has been, sitting in my house and sending message after unanswered message to the boy for the past seven days since we were married at the courthouse.

I haven’t had much time to care about her silence because I’ve barely been home as it is. Sultans can only run for so long without me focusing on what’s important there, and with Ian gone to Egypt, I’ve been up to my neck in meetings both within Sultans as well as after-hours meets in an empty warehouse I own on the outskirts of town with the Romanos, the Italian outfit that’s based in New York. They supply us with the weapons we use to trade for access to the mines across the world.

And that’s how this business works. Everything is a negotiation, and there’s no true good and evil. The separation is an illusion created by those of us in power to keep the masses at bay and feeling as though there are people fighting for what’s right.

But the truth is that one hand always washes the other, and I’m the water that rinses both clean.

In the few spare moments I’ve had, I’ve taken to pulling up her string of texts and call logs. She hasn’t done anything crazy, other than act like a desperate girl eager to regain the attention of that street rat.

It is surprising how he’s ignoring her, however. An odd one-eighty from the eager kid who was willing to turn the world upside down to prove his love just a couple weeks ago.

But I’m sure that when he returns home, she’ll snare him again.

I remember peering at them through the thin slat of the door in the room where they used to have their secret rendezvous.

Blowing out a breath, I try to shake away the image of her naked body, but it keeps dragging me under, and as usual these days, I can’t clear it from my mind.

Frustrated, I slam the phone down on the receiver, half-hard from just the singular thought of her, my hand running slightly over the growing bulge to temper my arousal.

It doesn’t work, and instead of being able to move on with my day and clear her from my brain, I let her take over entirely. Closing my eyes, my palm rubs against my now painfully hard erection, imagining her beneath my desk, her soft hand being the one to tease me.

Would she beg for my cock? Choke on it?

Groaning, I unzip my slacks and pull out my throbbing dick. Gripping it at the base, I slowly roll my hand up the shaft, my heart racing and my stomach tensing from how good it feels.

I imagine Yasmin’s pouty lips slipping over the head, her tongue flicking the slit on my tip and those perfect dark eyes staring up at me as she sucks me down.

My hand moves quickly, fingers tingling from how badly I wish I could grab fistfuls of her hair and slide into her mouth instead of the poor substitution of my palm.

Would she take me all the way down? Let me glide along her tongue and slip into the back of her throat?

My balls tense, heat collecting at the base of my spine, and I stroke faster, my hips thrusting up into my hand, wishing like hell that I could feel the wetness of her mouth and hear her gagging on my cock, the sparkle of her ring, proving to the world that she’s mine, glinting in the lighting as she works the base of my dick in tandem with the strokes of her lips.

That last visual does it, and I grab a handkerchief just in time to catch the heavy spurts of cum that release into the rag, my vision dotting with stars.

Goddamn.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve come so hard.

Blowing out a breath, I tuck myself back into my slacks, tossing the handkerchief into the bin beneath my desk, and reach up to tug at the roots of my hair.

Shaking off the momentary weakness, I refocus my thoughts on what’s important, which is figuring out what the hell Ali is up to.